This invention relates generally to paper money dispensing devices, and more particularly to a type thereof wherein paper money such as bank notes (hereinafter referred to as notes) of various denominations stored in accordance with their denominations are delivered in a manner such that the amounts of the notes thus delivered are exactly equal to these specified by delivery instruction for each of the denominations.
Known in the art are not dispensing apparatuses wherein the notes are stored in a plurality of boxes, each assigned for a specific denomination of the notes, in a manner such that the notes are stacked vertically or packed together horizontally with the longitudinal edges thereof resting on the box, whereby a required amount of notes in desired denominations can be successively taken out of these boxes into a commonly provided note receiving device.
However, the lengths and widths of the notes may differ for different denominations, and furthermore, when the notes to be taken out of these boxes have lost stiffness and have acquired folding lines or wrinkles as in the case of old notes which have been in circulation, the operation of taking the notes out of the boxes cannot be carried out smoothly.
For facilitating the taking of the notes of the boxes, the note receiving mechanism must be placed exactly at a predetermined position relative to the notes in the boxes. The realization of such a condition has been found to be difficult in the conventional note dispensing apparatuses because both the money storing boxes and the money receiving mechanism are movable. Even in the cases where the positioning of the note receiving mechanism does not constitute any problem at an early part of the working period, the alignment between the note receiving mechanism and the box tends to deteriorate with the use of the apparatus, for instance, over several months or years.
Furthermore, the note receiving mechanism in the conventional note dispensing apparatuses has been so constructed that the notes taken out of the money storing boxes are stacked therein by gravity, and therefore there are encountered other difficulties such as the delivery of the notes from the mechanism to a note dispensing section not being smooth when the notes thus received have folding lines or wrinkles as described hereinbefore.
In the conventional money dispensing apparatus, there has been a provision for counting the notes each time a note is taken out of a money storing box, but if two sheets of notes are simultaneously taken out of the box during the money taking-out operation, an error will be introduced into the counted result. For preventing this error, there have been provided various means such as a gap gate through which only one sheet can pass and a sucking head with vacuum which abuts against a foremost note in the stack or pack in the money storing box and delivers the thus sucked note with the aid of a roller.
In the case where a gap gate is provided, the facility with which a note passes through the gap gate differs depending on the condition of the note. For this reason, the gap of the gate must be readjusted in accordance with whether the note is new or old. Furthermore, there is a tendency of the gap to be clogged by the notes or the like. In the case where a sucking head is used as described above, there still exists a possibility of the subsequent note in the stack also eing sucked by the sucking head as a result of the vacuum acting through the fibrous tissue of the foremost note. In addition, there has been a tendency of the second note to be pulled out together with the first note due to friction between adjacent notes.